BackgroundThe Eventual Relationship Between Robots
and HumansMy Interest in
robotics (see The Coming "Age of Robotics")
is the eventual relationship between machine intelligence and human intelligence.
(This is a subject that has been explored by most major science fiction writers,
from Isaac Asimov's R Daneel Olivaw to the "overmind" in Keith
Laumer's Dinosaur Beach.)Fear of
"Mechanical Men" Goes Back a Long WayHumanity has feared mechanical men for centuries,
beginning with Montaigne's description of hydraulically actuated animals and
homunculi, and Vaucanson's duck ("If it looks like a duck, if it waddles
like a duck, and if it quacks like a duck, it must be a duck."), through
the weavers rioting against the new power looms, to Frankenstein and Karel
Kapek's R. U. R. In the
Early 1950's, Great Concern Arose About the Imminent Takeover of Human Society
by Super-Intelligent Robots. In the 1950's movie, "The Day the Earth Stood
Still", Klaatu, the human-looking alien, is asked about his robotic
servant, Gort. Klaatu replies, "You don't understand. I am the servant. He
is the master." Many alarmed conferences were held regarding how to address
this menace. Dr. Norbert Wiener, the Harvard mathematical prodigy, wrote a book
entitled "The Human Use of Human Beings", warning against the dangers
of centralized ownership of robots. Then, too, what would people do with their
free time when they no longer had to work for a living?

Klaatu
and Gort

But the Computers
of the Early 1950's Were Too Slow By a Factor of At Least 10,000,000,000!Dr.
Hans Moravecrealized
by the early 1970's that the largest mainframes of that era -- the IBM 360/75's
-- were at least 10,000,000 times slower than the human brain.He has framed and forecast the emergence of artificial
intelligence in the many documents on his website. Dr. Moravec's
Timetable for Robotic DevelopmentIn
1991,
Dr. Moravec published an article on robotics in the "fact" section of
Analog Science Fiction and Fact in which he explained why we didn't already have
intelligent robots, and how soon we might expect them. In the article, he
forecast the year 2000 as the time frame in which the
one-billion-floating-point-operations-per-second speeds that would permit
computers to emulate human vision would first appear.

Between 2000 --
2010,
he predicted the appearance of such low-level "robots" as
automatic lawn mowers and vacuum sweepers with the intelligence of, perhaps,
a lizard.

Between 2010 --
2020,
he predicted the marketing of multi-function household robots, perhaps with
arms and manipulators, that might perform simple household chores. These
would have the intelligence of, perhaps, a mouse.

Beyond 2050:
general purpose robots should exceed human intelligence, and may relocate to
outer space. Since they require no food, no water, and no oxygen, requiring
only energy and the occasional repair, they would be ideally suited for
existence in interplanetary space. (Given nuclear power and spare parts,
they might be comfortable in interstellar space.) Dr. Moravec called these
superhuman robots "Humanity's Children", and thought that might
then choose to pursue their own goals beyond the Earth.

So How
Are Things Progressing?
The
First (?) Robotic Lawn-Mower Appears
In the 1940's, some company introduced an automatic lawnmower
that used a self-propelled mower tethered by a rope to a drum. The lawnmower
mowed around and around until it unwound the rope.
The would only work where there was open space, such as often
exists around a sorporate flagpole.
Several other attempts were made in succeeding years,
including solar-powered lawnmowers.
In 1995, the Poulan Division of the Electrolux Group
introduced a French-invented, solar-powered automatic lawn mower (an electric
billy-goat) selling for $2,500. It mowed randomly inside an
area bounded by a wire. (We saw one nibbling away at Epcot in October, 1995.) It
wasn't exactly a smashing commercial success, and no other companies developed
competing products. It was evidently discontinued since there's no mention of it
today on the Poulan website. I read later that it was unreliable, in addition to being
very expensive. (One of my concerns at the time was theft, although it had a
theft alarm.) A
Commercially Successful "RoboMower Appears in 1999.
In 1999, an Israeli company called "Friendly
Robotics" introduced RoboMower for $500. Robomower worked like the
1995 Poulan automatic mower, while costing less than 30% as much as the
Poulon auto-mower. Toro licensed the design from Friendly Robotics and brought
out its own $500 automatic lawn mower, called "iMow."

RoboMower requires the installation of a boundary wire that defines the
periphery of the region to be mowed, together with boundary wires around any
areas inside the region to be mowed, such as trees and flower beds. When it's
powered up, RoboMower mows a strip along the boundary, and then, when it
completes the circuit, begins to mow diagonally across a corner of the lawn. It
uses a magnetic compass to help guide it. It can mow for about 4 hours before
recharging the batteries. You can buy extra batteries (at $130 for two 12-volt,
deep discharge batteries) and an external fast battery charger ($100) so that
the lawn mower can be kept in continuous operation. The mower will run for 3
hours on a battery charge, and will cut up to 6,000 square feet of grass (100'
by 60') on a 3-hour charge.
Batteries typically last between two and three years.
It's common practice to set up a mowing area for the back
yard, and another area for the front yard.
RoboMower is now on sale here in Huntsville at the
city's John Deere dealer, Central lawn and Garden Supply. Today, I went there
and talked with their manager. He said that the mower works very well -- is very
effective at cutting the grass by itself -- but that durability is a problem. He
said that after two or three years, the bushing-type bearings wear out. Also,
since a lot of it is made with plastic, its plastic parts can also wear out.Friendly
Robotics and Toro Introduce Second Generation Autonomous Mowers
RoboMower has recently introduced a new, and much improved,
$700 RoboMow RL-800. I asked him if this new model might have been designed for
greater durability than the original RL-500 model. He said he didn't know, that
that might well be the case.
He said that robotic equipment is coming on fast, but that
the first market lies in the commercial domain. A company can well afford to pay
thousands of dollars for a rugged, durable piece of automatic equipment that
will eliminate heavy labor costs. He said that computer applications are
marginal at this stage, because it costs so much to field them and to debug
them, while at the same time companies are having to cut costs to the bone.

But getting back to 1999....Dr. Moravec
Promised to Develop a Visual-Navigation "Powerhead" for Robots in
Three Years
In December, 1999, in an article in Scientific American, Dr.
Moravec told of his plans to develop a low-cost visual-navigation "powerhead"
for mobile use by the end of 2002. At first, it would be used for commercial
applications, but would later become cheap enough for consumer use.Dr. Moravec
Made Good on His Promise By December, 2002
Dr. Moravec and his associates have founded a company
called "Botfactory" to bring his "visual power-head" to
market over the next few years to guide industrial platforms such as fork lifts
and materiel handling equipment. Such a visual subsystem currently costs about
$5,000, but Dr. Moravec anticipates its dropping in price to about $1,000 by
2008. This might still be too expensive for household applications, but if a
market develops for this subsystem, prices might decline more rapidly.